


Why SHIELD Legal Can't Have Nice Things

by Shrewreadings



Series: Badger-Verse [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 15:44:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shrewreadings/pseuds/Shrewreadings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aftermath of Badgering the Lawyers</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why SHIELD Legal Can't Have Nice Things

Saturday noon

"Good morning." 

Caroline held a hand up, one finger extended, pointed at the ceiling. "Hold, please."

"Okay." Coulson leaned against the doorjamb, cane in one hand, coffee cup in the other. 

Caroline finished typing with what sounded like extreme prejudice. "Right. That's off. Good morning. I didn't hear the elevator, are you supposed to be taking the stairs? " 

"I'm fine. You were supposed to come see me."

She looked down at the time in the computer screen. "Yeah, next 'get up from your desk, moron,' alarm isn’t for thirty-five seconds." She locked down the computer, stood up and stretched. "Ow. It's still Saturday, right?"

"Yes."

"Good. You are, literally, the next item on my list." She picked up a Post-It reading 'Coulson, Saturday,' and handed it to him. "You said 'come by;' do I correctly infer that you wanted me to come to your office?"

"You do. Shall we?"

"Is your coffee machine running up there?"

"Should be."

"Thank God. Ours needs to age for two hours before it's past the 'imminent sentience' stage." She picked up a commuter mug and followed him out, pulling the door shut behind her.

"So, the servers." Coulson said in the elevator.

"MacLaurin got an answer?"

"He did. Didn't even have to bring out the comfy chair."

Caroline held the elevator door as Coulson stepped off. "Am I alone in being concerned about how little that says about our IT personnel's abilities to withstand torture?"

"Probably not." Coulson passed his ID over the door to the kitchen on his floor. It included a full espresso machine, a microwave, and a table-top convection toaster oven. 

Caroline looked in awe at the space. "Oh, my. What are SHIELD's policies about personal relationships with kitchen tech?"

"Keep it out of the office."

"Drat." She filled her mug, doctored the coffee, and followed Coulson back to his office. This required a PIN and retina scan from him and a card swipe from her. "So, the servers?"

Coulson sat down heavily and leaned his cane against his desk. "IT e-mailed Legal."

"Did they, now? They built a time machine?"

"Not yet, it's not in the budget until next quarter. No, they e-mailed. Showed Tom MacLaurin from your office the copy from their sent files; even had the trace through to the recipient's inbox."

"All right," Caroline said, "whom did they e-mail?"

"The lead in-house counsel."

Caroline looked puzzled. "We don't have one at the moment. Ms. Gutierrez left for Columbia in… what, June? Right after I interviewed, but before my grant ended."

"Yep."

"So we haven't had someone reading that in-box for months?"

"Correct."

"This strikes me as a problem." Caroline sipped the coffee. 

"You're not alone in that."

"Always nice to have company, I guess. But so long as someone checks that e-mail, we can get IT to rig us something in the way of a backup. At least kept the documents directory and e-mail running.” 

“Pretty much.”

“Right. And it's permanently fixed as soon as the new lead counsel comes in.” 

“Correct.”

“Planning on letting us know when that date might be?”

“Thinking about it. Actually not what I needed to talk to you about, though.” Coulson had a drawer open and was removing several objects. A black ID wallet was set on the desk, followed by a medallion-style titanium bracelet with gold cable running through the solid links. This was followed by what looked like a ring box.

Caroline looked at the objects, sipping her coffee. She raised it as if to propose a toast, tilting it a bit towards the ring box. "If this is a proposal, I should warn you that I'm only accepting if Col. Fury is willing to officiate."

Coulson set a handgun in a tuck holster and a clip of ammunition on the desk. 

She blinked. "Not a proposal, then." She said over her coffee mug.

"They're for you."

Caroline choked and snorted coffee out her nose and onto her sweatshirt. She put the mug down on a coaster, grabbed a Kleenex, got the worst of the mess off her front, pulled her sweatshirt off, balled it up, and put it on the floor. “I beg your pardon?” she asked. Her voice squeaked, and she blew her nose. She felt a drip on to her chest, glanced down, and realized two things: one, her ponytail was dripping coffee.

Second, she was wearing her [International Union of Minions & Henchpeople: Benevolent & Evil](http://www.minion-union.com/) – Local #667 t-shirt. 

Being unable to do anything about the latter, she settled for stealing another Kleenex and blotting the end of the ponytail.

Coulson looked at the shirt, smiled and chortled once. "They're for you. We're exercising the 'change in protocols and conditions of employment' clause in your contract and NDA." He picked up the bracelet. "Panic button. You're actually just two days ahead on this: all of Legal's getting them Monday."

"Why?"

"You work with every department. Legal files for the warrants. Legal files patent applications for R&D and weapons. You work with HR on hiring. You work with procurement. You clear the photo waivers for public appearance requests that come into PR. You work with the think tank on publishing and disclosure. You get the idea."

"We make SHIELD vulnerable."

"Especially with that daily department meeting at the same time and same place every day. You're not doing that any more, by the way."

Caroline's chin dropped and she crossed her arms over her chest. "You planning on telling them that yourself?"

"I'll be in your daily staff Monday."

"This ought to be good. I'll have to bring popcorn."

"I like Redenbacher's Movie Theater Butter flavor, if you're buying."

"I'll keep it in mind. So," Caroline nodded at the bracelet. "That's a panic button." She tilted her head. "How does it work?"

"It's a perpetual movement powered GPS tracker: your motion powers it, just like a watch. Activating it sends an alarm to ops, saying ‘send a SWAT and hostage rescue team to this location.’ It’s tied to your DNA and pulse: if it comes off, it goes off. If your heart stops or you stop moving for longer than 2 hours, it goes off."

"So I can expect SWAT teams break into my bedroom?" Caroline reflected that the company might not be unwelcome, but that the ensuing parking disaster would probably make her less than popular with her neighbors.

"More like if you're tied up somewhere unconscious. If the bracelet is broken or the clasp unfastened, it goes off. Oh, and if you push and hold the medallion for five seconds, it goes off. Wrist, please?" Caroline complied, and Coulson slid it over her hand. He closed the clasp. "This stays on your wrist at all times. Not in your pocket. Not in your bag. Not on your keys. On your wrist. It's waterproof and pressure proof to 40 meters: anything deeper than that and…"

"I sense a pattern: it goes off. I also see why you require a DNA sample once we get past the initial interview. I'd wondered about that."

"The rest of this," Coulson passed a hand over the gun, wallet and ring box, "is because you've moved on to the 'potential target' list."

"Potential target for what?" Caroline asked.

"Yesterday you hit the maximum number of hours in contact with the Avengers for a week. It's our experience that any amount over eight hours tends to start setting off Google Alerts."

"Okay, I'm not going to dwell on the part where I freak out because SHIELD actually has data on that kind of thing, and instead am going to dispute the eight hours. It's been what, three? four?"

"Eight. You were in the Stark licensing negotiations last week: that alone was four. One hour with the Captain on Monday, two with Ms. Romanov logging in evidence from Nebraska Tuesday, and yesterday's meeting."

"The licensing meeting didn't include Mr. Stark," Caroline said. "He called in, asked his lawyers to call him 'His Imperial Starkness,' got turned down and went back to finding rhymes for 'Capsicle' for ten minutes before hanging up."

"Tough. The minutes list him as present, and they're public record."

"Fucking SEC." Caroline muttered.

"Searchable online databases like the SEC's EDGAR make things a real bitch, yeah."

"Can't help but notice you haven't answered the 'potential target for what?' question." Caroline risked picking the coffee mug again. She was pretty proud of the fact that she didn't need to use two hands to keep the mug from shaking.

"The usual. Kidnapping, brainwashing, rabid fanboys, blackmail, the occasional omnivorous plant." Coulson picked up the ring box. "This is a biometric trigger lock." He opened the box to reveal a ring that matched the panic button bracelet. "The gun only works so long as you're wearing the ring. Like the panic button, it's tied to your DNA; unlike the panic button, the titanium alloy's been tempered so that other SHIELD personnel can use the gun, too. Hand, please."

Caroline put out her right hand.

Coulson raised his eyebrow. "You're left eye dominant. You shoot left handed."

Caroline put the coffee down and held out the other hand "How…?"

Coulson slid the ring onto her left middle finger. "You leave the house at 7:38 in the morning and turn right out your building onto Brighton 5th St. You walk against traffic on the sidewalk until you get to Brighton Beach Ave. You stop at the Xoroshaiye Deli at 6th and Brighton Beach at 7:45." Even for SHIELD, procuring DNA keyed biometric trigger locked guns and keys took a bit of time. He'd spent some of yesterday checking how Caroline had set off the SHIELD CCTV alerts. "I know that on Tuesdays and Thursdays you get an everything bagel with salmon spread: you really think I don't know which eye you used on your one visit to a shooting range on your 31st birthday?" Caroline didn't answer, so Coulson continued.

"On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays you get a plain bagel. You swipe your Metrocard at Brighton Beach subway station at the far right turnstile at 7:58. You sit with your back to a bulkhead and take the Q to 7th Ave. You walk down 11th Ave to 53rd and come in through the 49th Street entrance between 8:30 and 8:32, depending on the signals, because you won't jaywalk…" 

"Okay, got it. Freaking me out a little, here."

"Also, your left eye's prescription is about half a diopter weaker than your right." Coulson handed her the wallet. "ID and permit to carry. You need to stop with the habits. Also, you're not taking the train until you qualify with the sidearm."

"This is New York. I don't have a car."

"Transportation has been arranged. Be ready to get out the door at 7:30."

"Tell them to watch out for Ludmilla Sergeiovna down from Brighton 8th Avenue. She's usually crossing the street with her corgis about then, and she jaywalks."

"I'll let them know. Take the gun." 

Caroline took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She reached out, turned the holster so that the nose of the gun was pointing away from both her and Coulson, and slid it towards herself. She un-holstered, slid the gun out, and slowly and methotically checked it was unloaded, cleared the chamber, engaged the safety, and re-holstered the weapon. "Nice, I guess? We have a range?"

"You're booked for 2 hours this afternoon. Finish your coffee; I'll walk you down."

"Golly, Agent Coulson, anyone'd think you didn't trust me."

Coulson smiled. "You're a lawyer, Ms. Lakehurst. Of course I don't trust you." 

*~*~*

"Need me back tomorrow, or will Monday do?" Caroline asked Ken Pollard, the range instructor, to whom Coulson had introduced her before heading off for his own lane.

"Monday's fine." He accepted a handful of brass from her, and handed her a new clip. She reloaded, chambered a round, put the safety on, and holstered with a little more confidence than she had in Coulson’s office. 

They walked to the sign-in cage: the wall next to the basket holding the safety glasses had a poster in the back with a range finder mounted on a Bowie knife. The caption had been corrected to 'you're' from 'your' in advising that the user was performing close combat incorrectly. Caroline handed over her ear protectors and glasses; Jen the cage-minder handed her a clipboard with the open slots on Monday's schedule on it. 

Ken continued, "Find a slot in the schedule, pick up a hip holster. Got a safe for the house?" She shook her head. "Jen, pull one from the back for her, would you? Code it for her trigger lock. Phil gave you the run-down on the panic button?" Caroline nodded. "Good. Same for the ring." His watch went off, and he glanced at it. "You know your way out?"

"Yep." 

He headed toward his office, stopping to pull of his shoes and pick a carpet up from next to the door. "Good. I'll see you Monday, then." 

Caroline had noticed the sign on his wall reading 'Southeast.' She looked at her watch: afternoon prayers. " _Assalamu 'Alaikum,_ Ken." 

" _Wa 'Alaikum Assalam,_ Caroline." 

 

Monday, SHIELD legal department daily staff meeting

 

"People. People. People, can we _please_ pretend, for 10 minutes, that we're all responsible adults and focus?" The awfulness of Monday leeched into Michael Fabian's nasal tenor. Mondays were always horrid (Fabian's couldn't bring himself to say something as low class as 'sucked,') but this one had been exacerbated by Friday's daily staff, when he'd lost the weekly rock-paper-scissors tournament for 'running the three ring circus of daily staff.' At least he wouldn't have to deal with it the next week. If they all survived next week, of course. He looked at the agenda he'd printed Friday. "Right, first, we've got the usual requests going out for new licenses. One to Stark for some… thing… that ops wants, it looks like headsets? Two to MIT for datasets from the think tank. Tom, you and I are on with Stark this week?"

"No, it's been bumped over to Caroline." Tom MacLaurin, who'd shown Caroline the ropes in her first week, answered. "Per Mr. Coulson and Mr. Stark's request."

Fabian's eyes narrowed. "When… when did this happen?" He looked down at his agenda.

"Saturday afternoon, Mr. Fabian." Coulson answered, coming into the meeting. "Sorry I'm late. Hi, Stan." He set the box he was carrying down on the floor and sat in the empty seat next to Stan Resnick.

"Morning, Phil." Stan answered. "Good weekend?"

"Productive, thanks."

It was possible that Fabian would have looked less surprised if the empty chair had started participating. "Mr. Coulson? Can we help you?"

"This is the legal department's daily staff meeting, yes?"

"Yes, but management usually…"

"Then I'm fine, thanks." 

Caroline turned a page over in her legal tablet. She scribbled Coulson and Fabian's names, and awarded a point to Coulson. She passed the coffee carafe across Stan (who was usually good for a cut-throat game of Hangman in these things) to Coulson, who smiled in thanks and poured himself a cup. 

"Okay, then. So, Tom, since you're unexpectedly free this afternoon, can you take care of the MIT guys? I really don't want us to have to worry about another August surprise. That pink stuff coming out of the A/C was foul."

"Got it." Tom scribbled.

"Who's got warrant pager today?" 

Jodie Samuels raised her hand. "I do." She looked at Coulson and asked, "anything in particular I need to be prepared for?" Fabian narrowed his eyes, his nose wrinkling in distaste at Jodie's temerity in deviating from his agenda.

"Not at this time." Coulson answered. "You'll probably know before I do."

Caroline added another column to the scorecard, headed it with Jodie's name, added a point for Coulson, and one for Jodie (style and sensibility under unexpected circumstances).

Fabian went on. "Right, anyway, what I _needed_ to tell you, Jodie, was that the state courts in Albany and the city courts at Center Street aren't happy about how many requests we've been making, so double check the city and state requirements before you go jumping for a Federal warrant. We don't want states feeling like we're stomping on their rights in the name of Federal authority."

Caroline heard Coulson set his mug down a bit harder than usual. He licked his lips as if to start to say something. She caught his eye, gave the tiniest shake of her head, then deliberately turned her head to look at the older woman wearing pearls and a black twin-set sitting at the foot of the table.

She cleared her throat quietly. "Michael," Robbie Burr's said in her customary smooth, genteel soprano, "I think you might want to reconsider that position. While we clearly need the state and local authorities' cooperation, and thus occasional warrants, we have a stronger obligation to protect the agency against future civil action. Especially in light of our loss on _Foster v. US,_ I think it's important that we ensure Federal warrants are in place. Then, certainly, we could contact local and state courts, if appropriate."

"That very order of operations is what is causing New York City and State concern." Fabian argued. "We haven't been seeking city and state warrants; just operating on Federal. The comment I heard went 'jack-booted men in black storming through our neighborhoods.'"

"That's clever." Brendan answered, "but it's also irrelevant. _Gibbons v. Ogden:_ Federal supersedes state and local. We aren't obligated to request them at all: that we do is a matter of courtesy, nothing more. If they're upset about our order of operations, then they can take it up with Col. Fury." 

Fabian started, "but…"

"Michael, this is a territory fight that's over our head." Robbie interrupted. "The people who make that decision are way above our pay scale. And I suspect they wouldn't take kindly to you pre-empting it." Coulson relaxed enough to pick his coffee mug back up.

"In the meantime," Brendan picked up, "We should carry on with the protocols as set in place by Ms. Gutierrez, Col. Fury and Deputy Director Hill. When new in-house lead counsel comes in, we can sit down with states' attorneys general and local DAs to sort out their hurt feelings." 

Caroline added a column for Brendan and awarded him a point.

"Right, well, that's all _I've_ got." Fabian said, turning to Coulson. "Was there a _reason_ you wanted to be here today, Mr. Coulson?"

"Oops." Caroline murmured. She pre-emptively gave Coulson 4 more points. Stan Resnick, sitting next to her, noticed the score change, smiled into his coffee mug and chuckled once.

"Mr. Fabian, you need to check your e-mails more regularly." Coulson answered. He tapped his tablet, and a copy of the briefing Caroline'd got in her e-mail came up on the SmartBoard. "As you know, last Tuesday, Legal's server went down for regularly scheduled maintenance."

"Are you going to yell at all of us because Caroline had Byrnes text in his information? It's hardly our fault she didn't follow protocol and tell him to fax it over instead." Fabian interrupted.

Caroline had seen the look on Coulson's face before, but had usually associated it with border collies eyeing up errant sheep. "Not at all, Mr. Fabian. We hardly would expect such innovation out of your office." 

Caroline hid her smile at Coulson's slight emphasis on the word 'your.' Michael Fabian was like a mule plowing a field: plodding, stubborn and unimaginative. 

Coulson tapped his tablet, and continued. "Regardless, that's not the issue." The next slide appeared: a bar graph. "This is the volume of e-mail that went through SHIELD between 8 and 12 over the last week. You can see, Monday here," the tallest bar turned green, "Wednesday here," the second tallest turned blue, "and then there's Tuesday." The shortest bar turned purple. "E-mail volume dropped by about 38% on Tuesday morning. That's a sudden drop, and it caught IT's eye, especially when they looked at the comparable afternoons." 

The next slide showed another bar graph: this time Tuesday was easily half again as tall as Monday or Wednesday. "This is the backlog of e-mail going to legal from Tuesday morning. As you can see," a click and the bar turned red, "it's a lot."

"Oh, my." Robbie said, from her end of the table. "That _is_ a lot. Do we know why?"

Coulson brought the next slide up, another bar graph of which department got the most e-mail. Legal was second after IT: Ops came third. "We do. It seems that Legal gets cc'd on quite a bit of material. Now, the first thing that Carl Walton in IT noticed was the volume: it seems everyone in Legal gets carboned about everything, which creates an efficiency issue,"

"But it does ensure breadth of coverage." Robbie countered. "We're all at least minimally prepared for anything that might come up. This way, no matter who gets called, we all either know or can find the basics of every issue. And given we don't have backup servers, having this much duplication is probably necessary."

"We're working on the backup issue, Ms. Burr," Coulson answered. "It'll be in place and operational by the end of the day. And management is quite happy to leave efficient organization of this department to the department, and its head."

"When are we _getting_ a new head, anyway?" Fabian asked.

"I don't have that information, Mr. Fabian." Coulson tapped for the next slide, a flowchart showing who sent what to legal. "What I can tell you is that there's no question that this much carboning to legal _is_ necessary. Take a look at what you get…" He proceeded to re-hash the conversation he'd had with Caroline on Saturday.

Stan Resnick said "huh," and then his eyebrows furrowed.

Robbie Burr sat forward in her seat. She looked at Caroline, down at the younger woman's wrist, then at her own, where a similar bracelet sat. "Col. Fury wants some insurance." Robbie said.

"Yes, he does." Coulson answered, closing the PowerPoint, picking up the box and setting it on the table. "We're issuing the entire department panic buttons with trackers in them…" several of the lawyers around the table bristled, "and adding the basic firearms course as a minimum requirement to all your contracts." 

"Now just a minute!" Fabian began. "If you think we're going to give up our basic civil liberties to keep our jobs…"

Caroline reached under her seat, picked up the Tupperware bowl she'd brought from her office and set it on the table in front of Stan. Stan Resnick looked at it for a moment, took the lid off the bowl, and took a couple of pieces of the popcorn inside, thoroughly bemused. 

He scribbled on his own legal pad, 'I take it the meeting time is also on the chopping block?' where both Coulson and Caroline could see it.

Coulson nodded, letting Robbie and Brendan handle the faction of lawyers, led by Fabian, who were willing to go through the background checks SHIELD required, carry cell phones with GPS applications on them, and get groceries with frequent shopper cards that cross-correlated their preference for Kosher Hydrox cookies with their Smithfield ham purchases, but drew the line at being able to call for help even if separated from their phones.

Caroline and Stan started playing hangman. Coulson periodically commented in the argument, while occasionally noshing on the popcorn. After about 20 minutes, Robbie laid out the trump card.

"Look, regardless of whether we like it or not, do any of us _actually_ think that these," she nodded her chin at the box, "are going to tell ops or intel anything about us that they _don't already know?"_ She reached across the table, gesturing for Coulson to pass the popcorn. He obliged. "We start showing up on CCTVs from the second we leave our houses. Hell, some of us have the kind of security systems with CCTVs _in_ our houses." She fixed Fabian with a look. The entire department had had to put up with weeks of bragging – presented as grumbling about the necessity of protecting his wife's jewelry – when Fabian had his Connecticut McMansion's alarm system put in, complete with cameras monitoring every door to the outside, including the balcony from the master bedroom. "This is the 21st century. Big Brother's watching: this way at least he can send out the cavalry if we need it."

"Robbie's right on the panic buttons. But guns? What's next, telling us we have to _carry_ guns?" Andrea Coen asked. "I've got kids at home: I really don't want my toddler getting shot."

"There are no plans to ask you to do so, Ms. Coen," Coulson reassured her, "barring exceptional circumstances or assignments, such as Ms. Lakehurst being asked specifically to cover all the material directly involving the Avengers Initiative." Everyone turned to stare at Caroline, who dropped her pen on the table and looked at Coulson. That hadn't been in her e-mails. "However, we are also going to be installing panic buttons in your homes: if you don't already have alarm systems, we'll be putting them in."

"You want us to bring our families into this farce?" Fabian demanded.

Brendan, thoroughly fed up by now, muttered, "sheesh, Michael, it's not like he wants to tag your Panamera."

"Actually, we already track his Porsche Panamera," Coulson answered.

"What??" Fabian shrieked, his voice cracking. "Who the hell do you think…"

Robbie cut in. "Michael, your very unfortunate car comes standard with GPS. The satellite network was developed by the Department of Defense. Of course they track your car, they track everyone's GPS. If you're that worried that someone's going to pitch a fit over you stopping for your Viagra at the Walgreen's on the way home, then use the mail-order prescription service and get it delivered to the UPS store on West 57th the way everyone else does."

Fabian turned crimson, but shut up. 

Robbie turned to Coulson. "Are those they?"

"Yep. Agent Sawicki will be in after we're done to make sure we know who has which tag. We're going to be meeting individually this week with you all to establish call-in challenge and responses, too, in the event of false alarms. Finally, scheduling." Coulson leaned forward and set his hands on the table. "We're going to need you to stop having daily staff at 10 every day. Mix it up. Decide the day before. Use a random number generator. The warrant pager's fine." He added quickly, seeing Robbie about to ask. "We just need you to be a little less predictable." Coulson looked right at Fabian as he said this last.

"I really can't just drop everything at some random time tomorrow, or Wednesday, or…"

"Michael?" Robbie asked, sounding tired, "shut up. I'll handle this week, we'll sort out next week Friday as usual." She looked down at her agenda. "Mr. Coulson's presentation was the last item _I_ had as of this morning. Does anyone have anything else that absolutely _cannot_ keep until tomorrow?" No one volunteered. "Good. Let's try to get some work done, then. You lot stay and meet with Agent Sawicki." She fixed the majority of the meeting with a look. "Caroline, Stan and I will hold down the farm while you're being briefed." She stood up and passed the empty popcorn bowl back to Caroline, who collapsed it flat and clipped the lid on. 

Agent Sawicki knocked before coming in to do the panic button talk and match. Stan, Robbie, Caroline and Coulson passed him as they left. Caroline looked at Stan curiously. "Stan, you've already got one?"

"There was an incident with A.I.M. some time back." Stan said wryly. 

Robbie snorted. "'Incident' meaning 'enough damage to take me out of the FBI field office and send me to law school.' Don't let the mild mannered, nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn act fool you, Caroline,"

"Especially since it's Brookline," Stan countered. "I did some work for the Bureau after MIT is all."

"23 arrests and 58 files cleared." Coulson corrected. "Oh, and some recruitment trips to Boston University." He smiled and they turned the corner. "Who won?" he nodded at Caroline's pad.

"You were in the lead until the end, but then Robbie overtook you with the comment about Fabian's Panamera. Stan took ‘Paleolithic’ and ‘galvanize’: I took ‘anvil’, ‘roan’ and was up to r, a, t, blank, I, blank, head, two arms and one leg." She looked at the letters she'd crossed off. "Not e, not s, not m, not p."

Robbie answered. "Ratlin." Stan grinned and nodded.

"Ratlin?" Caroline asked. They got to the elevator lobby: she pushed both up and down for them.

"If you put those ladders they hang out the helicopters on a ship under sail, they'd be called ratlins, or ratlines." Coulson explained. "You're not a sea-lawyer, are you."

"More of a mountain lodge and occasional beachfront rental sort." She answered. "So, is the change in assignment what this morning was about?"

"You might very well think such things." Coulson replied.

"This morning?" Stan asked.

"Ken Pollard won't certify me yet, so I got a ride this morning." Caroline answered. "Which, by the way, not nice, Mr. Coulson."

"It was that or set you up with an emergency ID code. Fail, by the way."

"Pardon?"

"This morning. You didn't call in to confirm that Ms. Romanov and Captain Rogers were your ride today. You just set your alarm and got in a car with them." Phil continued. "Definite fail."

Stan swatted Caroline on the back of the head. "Nitwit."

She rubbed the back of her head ruefully. 

Robbie fixed Caroline with a glare. "You didn't ask before you left Saturday?"

Caroline wondered how it was that Robbie's kids had ever managed to misbehave. Chagrined, Caroline said "Yeah, that was stupid, all right."

"You're new at it. Everyone fails first time out." Stan reassured her. "And Phil, why the hell haven't you set her up with a passcode?"

"Next on the agenda." The elevator arrived; Coulson got on and looked at Caroline. "1:30, Deputy Director Hill's office. Robbie, don't let her be late."

Robbie waved him off with a 'don't worry' kind of gesture. "Got it. See you then."


End file.
